Millions of Californians live in places with dirty air, according to an annual report card issued Wednesday that ranks two major urban areas in the state as the nation’s most polluted. Bakersfield tops the list for having the most unhealthy days from airborne particles spewed by highway traffic, diesel trucks, farm equipment and fireplaces, the American Lung Association’s State of the Air 2016 report says. Los Angeles remains the nation’s leader in harmful ozone pollution from car tailpipes emitting smog, the report says. Air pollution can trigger asthma attacks, heart attacks, lead to lung cancer and cause premature death. […]...

First, let me say that I drive a Volvo XC70 - a 300 HP, 5000 pound, gas guzzler that gets about 9,000 miles per ticket -- and have never owned, or wanted, either a Volkswagen or an Audi. It's unfair to hold today's Volkswagen AG accountable for the sins of its founders, but I have never understood how leftist anti-war protestors and peaceniks could commute to their riots in cars and vans whose design Ferdinand Porsche largely stole from Tata at Hitler's orders -- but then, I don't understand how adoring posters of mass murderers like Mao and Che...

Breathing polluted air every day may change a person's brain in ways that end up leading to cognitive impairment, according to a new study. In the study, researchers examined 943 healthy adults who were at least 60 years old and lived the New England region. The investigators used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at the participants' brain structures, and compared the images with the air pollution levels in the places where the participants lived. The researchers found that an increase of 2 micrograms per cubic meter in fine-particle pollution — a range that can be observed across an average...

In late 2014, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a rule that would further ratchet down national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ground level ozone from the current level of 75 parts per billion (ppb) to a range of 65 to 70 ppb. Notably, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) declared the proposal to be the most expensive regulation ever imposed on the country. A study recently conducted by NERA Economic Consulting and commissioned by NAM confirms NAM’s earlier statement. Specifically, the study reveals that reducing the current ozone standard to 65 ppb would reduce U.S. gross...

Usually when the Obama administration is discussing doctors and health issues, Obamacare is on the table. Thursday, however, the White House threw a curve by linking health to climate change. In a new blog post, the White House declares that "7 out of 10 Doctors [say] Climate Change Is Already Harming Patients’ Health." While often the White House has been a source of upbeat reports on recent health improvements attributed in part to the Affordable Care Act, the language of this post stands in sharp contrast. For example: "Already, 1 in 10 children in the U.S. suffers from asthma. Heat-related...

Unable to clean air completely for APEC, China resorts to blocking data By Simon Denyer and Xu Yangjingjing November 10 BEIJING – China has made a gargantuan effort to clear Beijing’s smoggy air for an important regional summit this week, closing hundreds of factories and forcing cars off the road, but its efforts have only been partially successful. On Monday afternoon, the U.S. Embassy air quality monitor reported a reading of 157, a measurement classified as “unhealthy”. Red-faced, the Chinese government has come up with an innovative solution – block the data from being displayed on local smart phone apps...

IRWINDALE >> Sriracha’s spicy relationship with the City Council cooled off a bit Wednesday after officials unanimously dismissed a lawsuit and public nuisance declaration against manufacturer Huy Fong Foods. The standoff between the city and Sriracha creator David Tran began in October when the city filed a lawsuit against his iconic company. The battle sparked fears among Sriracha fans there would be a global shortage of the popular condiment and its bottle with the tell-tale green cap. An informal meeting Tuesday between Tran and city officials, accompanied by a written statement from Tran, provided the council the assurance it needed...

(CNN) -- A key part of the Obama administration's green policies received surprisingly strong Supreme Court support on Tuesday over efforts to curb air pollution. A 6-2 majority of justices issued a decision upholding federal agency rules to control coal-fired power plant emissions from 28 states. Obama takes on coal industry It was a rare environmental victory in a conservative majority court that has in recent years generally sided against the federal government's nationwide clean air policies. The issue was complex -- whether an "upwind" state that is polluting a "downwind" state is free of any obligations under the so-called...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday revived an Environmental Protection Agency regulation that limited power-plant emissions blowing across state lines—a victory for the Obama administration. The court's 6-2 ruling breathes new life into a 2011 EPA regulation known as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which requires 28 states to reduce power-plant emissions that hurt the air-quality in states located downwind. The regulation stands to affect about 1,000 power plants in the eastern half of the U.S that may have to adopt new pollution controls or reduce operations. The court's decision in EPA v. EME Homer City Generation, written by Justice Ruth...

Because of the United States outsourcing manufacturing to China, the eastern United States saw a decrease in sulfate pollution, but an increase was seen in the western part of the nation. Average sulfate, carbon monoxide and black carbon concentrations went down by 0.3% to 0.9% when looking at population-weighted averages. But this all comes at a cost: In the western United States and populous Chinese regions, air quality went down. Over the last decade, China has seen a huge increase in the use of coal-burning power plants, Wuebbles said. Coal use for generating electricity is a big part of why...

Beijing’s skyscrapers receded into a dense gray smog Thursday as the capital saw the season’s first wave of extremely dangerous pollution, with the concentration of toxic small particles registering more than two dozen times the level considered safe. The air took on an acrid odor, and many of the city’s commuters wore industrial strength face masks as they hurried to work. The city’s air quality is often poor, especially in winter when stagnant weather patterns combine with an increase in coal-burning to exacerbate other forms of pollution and create days-long periods of heavy smog. But the readings early Thursday for...

SHANGHAI, China -- Hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled on Friday in China's commercial hub of Shanghai as record levels of air pollution shrouded the city in smog, prompting authorities to issue the highest level of health warning. The incident is especially embarrassing at a time when China seeks to build Shanghai into a global business hub on par with the likes of London, New York and Hong Kong by 2020. On Friday afternoon, the Shanghai government issued its severest health warning as the city's pollution index ranged between 23 times and 31 times the levels recommended by international...

U.S. Committee on Science, Space and TechnologyHand it over. Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House science committee, signs a subpoena ordering the Environmental Protection Agency to hand over sensitive health data. In a rare step, the science committee of the U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to subpoena the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for data from key studies used to justify air pollution regulations.Following a heated exchange of letters between Committee Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) and ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), the committee approved its first subpoena in 21 years. The vote was strictly along party lines,...

Historical study links higher levels of pollution to higher mortality. High levels of particulates from coal burning in China’s highly polluted north may have cut more than five years from life expectancy for the 500 million people who lived there in the 1990s, scientists report today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1. The study can help to forecast the health effects of pollution in present-day China — where air quality has only gotten worse — as well as in other countries. Chinese air pollution made global headlines during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and again this winter, when particulate...

Pregnant women exposed to high levels of air pollution are up to twice as likely to have a child with autism as women who lived in areas with low pollution, according to a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Researchers looked at data going back to 1989 about 325 women who had a child with autism and 22,000 women who had a child without the disorder, then correlated that with pollutant levels at the time and place of birth and how much exposure the women would have had. In areas where diesel particulates or mercury in...

The Environmental Protection Agency late last month proposed strict new "clean fuel" standards on gasoline. The EPA said the so-called Tier 3 rule would cut emissions of smog-forming pollutants, as well as toxic emissions like benzene. What the EPA didn't say was that levels of these pollutants have been falling steadily for years, and would continue to fall even without the new rule, which the oil industry says will cost tens of billions of dollars. Indeed, a fact that won't get much attention on Earth Day — April 22 — is that pollution has been falling across the board for...

WA Legislator: Cyclists increased respiration leads to air pollution" $25 Carbon TAX. Rep. Ed Orcutt thinks that "bicyclists are actually polluting when they ride" because, "the act of riding a bike results in greater emissions of carbon dioxide from the rider." A high-ranking Washington legislator has added insult to injury in his support for a bike tax by claiming that bicycling is not environmentally friendly because people who ride bikes pollute the air when they breathe. (snip) Here's the entire text of Orcutt's email: "I am not a fan of the House Transportation tax proposal, nor of many tax proposals,...

Study of 3 million infants suggests connection between inhaled particles and birth weight. Pregnant women who have been exposed to higher levels of some types of air pollution are slightly more likely to give birth to underweight babies, a large international study has found. The results are published online today in Environmental Health Perspectives1. Low birth weight — defined as a newborn baby weighing less than 2.5 kilogrammes — increases the risk of infant mortality and childhood diseases, and has been associated with developmental and health problems later in life, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Previous studies have looked at...

A UC Riverside study found that commercially cooked hamburgers cause more air pollution than diesel trucks. The study, which focused on commercial charbroilers found in burger restaurants, said the equipment generates grease, smoke, water vapors and combustion products, which emit a large amount of particulate matter into the air.

TEANECK — An elderly man was arrested Monday night after a neighbor's fart allegedly drove him to threaten him with a gun, police said. Daniel Collins, 72, had been involved in an ongoing dispute with the unidentified neighbor for some time, Det. Lt. Andrew McGurr told NJ.com. The neighbor told officers that Collins pointed a revolver at him in the vestibule of their apartment building at 694 Cedar Lane at around 9:25 p.m. Collins said he confronted the man after hearing him pass gas in front of his apartment door, but denied threatening him with a gun. He consented to...

Maryland may eventually do away with tollbooths on the state's highways, bridges and tunnels and switch to electronic toll collection. A preliminary report by the Maryland Transportation Authority concluded that converting its seven toll plazas is feasible but would cost as much as $180 million. Transportation officials initiated the study as they look for long-term savings and ways to reduce travel time and increase highway safety. "It's something we're interested in doing. It's something the industry is moving toward. But it's complicated and we're in the earliest stages," said Harold Bartlett, the transportation authority's executive secretary. At least eight states...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Democrat-controlled Senate on Thursday rejected a Republican attempt to block a regulation intended to curb power plant pollution that blows downwind into other states. By a 56-41 vote, senators defeated a resolution by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who said the step was needed to rein in what he called the Obama administration's overzealous job-killing approach to environmental protection. "We are simply asking that the clean air regulations already on the books stay in place and we do not make the regulations so onerous that they put utility plants out of business and we have an...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama says his administration is considering seven new government regulations that would cost the economy more than $1 billion a year, a tally Republicans will pounce on to argue that Congress needs the power to approve costly government rules. In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, Obama lists four proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules and three Department of Transportation rules estimated to cost in excess of $1 billion. .. ... The four environmental regulations, which target air pollution and coal residue primarily from coal-fired power plants, have already been attacked by House Republicans, who...

EPA's Power SapperThe Cross-State Air Pollution Rule is an economy killer. On July 7, the Environmental Protection Agency adopted strict new standards on power-plant emissions that cross state lines â€” the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). The rule has been the focus of multiple White House meetings, hastily called legislative hearings, and last-ditch letters from congressmen, unions, industry, and the states â€” all pleading with EPA to consider the jobs that will be lost because of this single rule. And it is only the latest installment in dizzying series of new EPA rules with multi-billion-dollar compliance costs and dubious or...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday finalized stronger regulations for Wisconsin and 26 other states aimed at curbing air pollution from long-distance sources. The rules will help those states fight ozone and particle pollution caused by power plants in Illinois, Indiana and other states. But Wisconsin utilities - whose pollution can contribute to air-quality problems elsewhere - will also need to find ways to reduce their own emissions. The likely result: Higher electric bills in the coming years. A group of power companies known as the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity called the action one of the most...

NEW YORK – The city will phase out the use of polluting heavy oils to heat buildings and will begin building solar power plants on capped landfills, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday in his first update to a 4-year-old environmental plan that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2030. Under the plan, the phase-out of heavy oils from the city's boilers would start right away and be completed by the 2030 deadline. It would reduce the presence of airborne fine particulate matter, which the city says is killing 3,000 residents each year and forcing 6,000 to seek...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court rejected a shipping industry challenge Monday to California's offshore air pollution rules requiring vessels to use low-sulfur fuel within 24 miles of the coast, standards that the court said would save about 3,500 lives over six years while modestly increasing shipping costs. The ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is a milestone in California's efforts to curb a significant source of hazardous emissions. Low-grade bunker fuel from ships has a sulfur content more than 1,600 times as high as diesel fuel for trucks and exposes 80 percent...

Buying gasoline could get a lot more complicated. The Environmental Protection Agency will allow gasoline to contain up to 15 percent ethanol — up from the current 10 percent. But that mix of fuel is only good for cars and light trucks built since 2007....E-15 gasoline can damage pre-2007 engines. Corn-based ethanol burns hotter than gasoline, causing catalytic converters to break down faster. Newer emissions systems can handle the heat. Critics of ethanol say it makes animal feed more expensive — raising prices at the grocery store — and making it requires a lot of water and takes fertile soil...

Washington (AP) - The Obama administration is proposing a new rule to tighten restrictions on pollution from coal-burning power plants in the eastern half of the country, a key step to cut emissions that cause smog. The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday the new rule represented its most consequential effort yet to tackle deadly pollution that contributes to smog and soot that hangs over more than half the country. The rule would cost nearly $3 billion a year and those costs are likely to be passed along to consumers, although the rule's effect on specific companies and on consumers was...

A campaign to declare the mass destruction of ecosystems an international crime against peace - alongside genocide and crimes against humanity - is being launched in the UK. The proposal for the United Nations to accept "ecocide" as a fifth "crime against peace", which could be tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC), is the brainchild of British lawyer-turned-campaigner Polly Higgins. The radical idea would have a profound effect on industries blamed for widespread damage to the environment like fossil fuels, mining, agriculture, chemicals and forestry. Supporters of a new ecocide law also believe it could be used to prosecute...

In testimony delivered in Houston today, officials with the American Petroleum Institute said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed new ozone pollution standards would exact significant costs on consumers, jobs and the economy without delivering commensurate benefits. Furthermore, they said there was no solid scientific justification for imposing the more stringent standards.

Aerosols' complicated influence on our climate just got more threatening: they could make methane a more potent greenhouse gas than previously realized, say climate modellers.Drew Shindell, at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, and colleagues ran a range of computerized models to show that methane's global warming potential is greater when combined with aerosols — atmospheric particles such as dust, sea salt, sulphates and black carbon. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol assume methane to be, tonne-for-tonne, 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet. But the...

SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are both traveling to Copenhagen this week to promote Chicago's bid to host to the 2016 Olympic Games--and they will be making the 3,979-mile trip on separate airplanes." SNIPPET: "As reported earlier by CNSNews.com, a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report cited two cost estimates for an hour of air travel by the president, vice president and first lady. One estimate comes from the White House Military Office, the other from the U.S. Air Force. Using the CRS cost estimates and the inflation adjuster from the Bureau of Labor Statisitcs,...

Independent teams of researchers in the UK and the US have shown that nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere can participate in chemical reactions on the surfaces of buildings, indoors and outdoors, producing harmful pollutants including the respiratory irritant nitrous oxide, the toxic gas nitrosyl chloride and hydroxyl radicals. Rod Jones' team at the University of Cambridge in the UK investigated the fate of NO2 when it comes into contact with glass that has been coated with titanium dioxide.1 TiO2-coated glass is available commercially as a self-cleaning product in which the TiO2 photocatalytically degrades organic dirt in the presence of sunlight. In...

Alternative Energy: A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another.It's a beautiful theory — highways full of electric cars emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants after being plugged into an outlet in our garages overnight. The problem, according to a new Government Accountability Office report, is that the effort may only shift the problem somewhere else. "If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading...

Alternative Energy: A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another..."If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."

The Environmental Protection Agency took a major step toward tougher reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks Tuesday by giving California the green light to impose new requirements that could become the national model for combatting tailpipe pollution linked to global warming. The EPA granted California's long-standing request — denied by the Bush administration — for a waiver to allow it to pursue more stringent air pollution rules than required by the federal government. It cleared the way to implement immediately a 2002 state pollution law requiring new cars to increase their fuel economy 40 percent by 2016....

LOS ANGELES – Sixty percent of Americans live in areas with unhealthy air pollution levels, despite a growing green movement and more stringent laws aimed at improving air quality, the American Lung Association said in a report released Wednesday. The public-health group ranked the pollution levels of U.S. cities and counties based on air quality measurements that state and local agencies reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency between 2005 and 2007. Overall, the report found that air pollution at times reaches unhealthy levels in almost every major city and that 186.1 million people live in those areas. The number...

Aerosols bumped up world’s plant productivity by 25 percent in the 1960s and 1970s, new research suggests The world’s vegetation soaked up carbon dioxide more efficiently under the polluted skies of recent decades than it would have under a pristine atmosphere, a new analysis in the April 23 Nature suggests. The trend hints that relying on forests and other vegetation to sequester carbon may not be effective if skies continue to clear, researchers say. Major volcanic eruptions throw large quantities of aerosols, such as small bits of fractured rock and droplets of sulfuric acid, high into the atmosphere. Those particles...

Darker skies have uncertain effect on global warming.Air pollution that is harmful to human health has increased over all populated continents except Europe since 1973, according to an extensive survey.I can see dimly now: air pollution is on the rise in most areas of the world.punchstock The results play into a long-standing debate over whether the Earth's skies are dimming or brightening, how this affects the amount of sunlight reaching the planet's surface and what that means for climate change. Two studies published in Science in 2005 concluded that a global dimming trend that began in the 1950s has been...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Lowering air pollution in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley would save more lives annually than ending all motor vehicle fatalities in the two regions, according to a new study. The study, which examined the costs of air pollution in two areas with the worst levels in the country, also said meeting federal ozone and fine particulate standards could save $28 billion annually in health care costs, school absences, missed work and lost income potential from premature deaths.

The Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay areas do not meet tough new air quality standards designed to protect public health and may need additional regulations, federal regulators said Tuesday. The Environmental Protection Agency's announcement drew criticism from a top state air official, who warned it could hurt economic development and do little to improve air quality.The EPA said its review found Brown, Columbia, Dane, Racine, Waukesha and Milwaukee counties have unacceptable levels of fine particulate matter in the air or contribute to problems in neighboring areas. The pollution is largely caused by coal-fired power plants and diesel engines and creates...

Dust storms that fouled Kern County’s air in May could mean months of delay for two major Kern County freeway projects. A project to widen Highway 46 from Holloway Road west to Highway 33 at Blackwells Corner will almost certainly be delayed for five months or more, said Ron Brummett, executive director of the Kern Council of Governments. And the Westside Parkway in Bakersfield, a freeway that’s to run west from a point near Highway 99 to Heath Road, might also be delayed if dickering over air quality standards goes on too long. The Environmental Protection Agency, Brummett said, is...

A judge in Georgia has thrown out an air pollution permit for a new coal-fired power plant because the permit did not set limits on carbon dioxide emissions. Both opponents of coal use and the company that wants to build the plant said it was the first time a court decision had linked carbon dioxide to an air pollution permit. The decision’s broader legal impact was not clear, either for the plant, proposed to be built near Blakely, in Early County, Ga., or for others outside Georgia, but it signaled that builders of coal plants would face continued difficulties in...

Air pollution from power plants and automobiles is destroying the fragrance of flowers and thereby inhibiting the ability of pollinating insects to follow scent trails to their source, a new University of Virginia study indicates. This could partially explain why wild populations of some pollinators, particularly bees – which need nectar for food – are declining in several areas of the world, including California and the Netherlands. The study appears online in the journal Atmospheric Environment. "The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment, such as in the 1800s, could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 meters;...

Cars have been a huge part of our lives. We use them to get around anywhere. It might have been the best invention mankind came up with, but we all hate several common things about cars, such as the cost of gas prices and traffic. We think sometimes in our imagination how awesome it would be if cars had wings, so maybe one day we will fly through terrific! We also despise accidents, high insurance and drunk driving. Sometimes, I feel that we need other alternative means of transportation, such as a subway system in the state of Texas; maybe...

Hydroxyl radicals, nature's atmospheric scrubbers, are produced by nitrogen pollution too. Some types of air pollution might be doing a good turn by creating extra doses of atmospheric cleaner, according to new research. A lab study has shown how nitrogen oxides, a largely agricultural pollutant, can help to make hydroxyl radicals — the natural cleaner-upper of our dirty atmosphere. But in doing so they can also produce more ozone, the major component of smog. The work should help to improve models of atmospheric chemistry, and suggest better ways to control air pollution in big cities. The hydroxyl radical is a...

Beijing events could be postponed in case of heavy pollution: IOC Monday • March 17, 2008 The International Olympic Committee said Monday that it would set up a special panel to recommend the postponement of events at the Beijing Olympics in case of heavy pollution. IOC Medical Commission chairman, Arne Ljungqvist, announcing the IOC's own analysis of air quality data for Beijing, said that the body would be formed with representatives from his commission and from sports federations. "We have to have a mechanism in place to provide the coordination commission with the facts," he said, referring to the IOC...

There's been a lot of talk about the new Trans-Texas Corridor — the next-generation "super-highway" — and opinions are varying. Now the debate is coming to Lufkin's doorstep. On Monday, the American Land Foundation, Stewards of the Range and TURF will hold a workshop at Lufkin's Pitser Garrison Civic Center on how to stop the Trans-Texas Corridor 69. The event runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. A portion of Texas citizens have voiced their opposition to the TTC-69 in public meetings held by the Texas Department of Transportation, but believing they are not being heard, four cities and their...

Mention air pollution, and what comes to mind? Factories. Oil refineries. Auto tailpipes. Now Bay Area smog regulators are trying to crack down on another source that they say is just as significant, even if beloved: home fireplaces. Citing growing medical research that soot causes more severe health problems than was previously realized, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District is proposing a ban on all wood burning in fireplaces and wood stoves in the nine Bay Area counties during winter "Spare the Air" nights. --snip-- If approved, fireplace police would enforce the rules, and neighbors would be encouraged to...